When the pressure's on, leaders need to lean on attention, authenticity and agility
Responsibility invites different meanings for different people, but for leaders today, it’s non-negotiable.
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Rebecca, a managing partner of a law firm in New York, was faced with an executive order from the White House to explain her firm’s diversity policies or risk losing government contracts. She was torn. Should she bring it to a partner vote, make the call herself or resign in protest? Driven by loyalty to her people, she chose to stay and fight.
Her daily mindfulness practice helped her stay centred during what she described as a “circular firing squad”. Whatever she did, someone was going to take a shot at her. Guided by her principles and sense of duty to the firm and her partners, she chose to condemn the order, standing firm in her belief in diversity. In the aftermath, a judge in Washington DC blocked parts of the directive, and some firms joined a collective effort to challenge it. Others, wary of future backlash, rolled back their diversity policies and shifted to pro bono work instead.
Not every leader held their ground – but Rebecca did. Her story is a reminder of what responsible leadership looks like under pressure, and a prompt to ask: What does it take to lead responsibly today?
Responsibility invites different meanings for different people, but for leaders today, it’s non-negotiable. As Sumantra Ghoshal wrote in 2005, business schools had trained students to think in narrow, amoral terms. What matters, he said, isn’t changing people, but changing the context they work in. Good leadership, then, is about building the conditions for responsible behaviour.
While much has changed over the past two decades, the challenge of responsible leadership has only intensified. Organisations now invest in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategies and leadership development programmes aimed at building responsibility into the way people lead.
[This article is republished courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge, the portal to the latest business insights and views of The Business School of the World. Copyright INSEAD 2025]